Author’s Guide

All submissions are screened with Turnitin/iThenticate, a professional plagiarism-detection service. The journal does not accept plagiarised material for publication. An editor reviews every similarity report before any decision; a similarity score alone never decides an outcome, but manuscripts with substantial unattributed overlap are rejected.

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1. Peer review policy

2. Manuscript preparation before submission

3. Article types

4. Open access, copyright and licensing

5. Publication fees

6. Submission

7. References

8. Tables, figures and supplementary material

9. Required declarations, including competing-interest disclosure

10. Publication ethics, plagiarism screening and malpractice

11. After acceptance, including provisional acceptance, corrections and retraction policy

1. Peer review policy

The journal uses double-blind peer review: reviewers do not know the authors’ identities, and authors do not know the reviewers’. Every research article and review is assessed by at least two independent expert reviewers who are not from the authors’ institution and have no conflict of interest. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for all content and makes the final decision.

Technical check (within [7] days): the editorial office checks scope, completeness, formatting, declarations and anonymity, and runs a similarity check. Incomplete submissions are returned.

Editorial assessment (within [14] days): the Editor-in-Chief or a section editor decides whether the manuscript goes to review. Out-of-scope or clearly unsound papers are declined without review.

Peer review (target [4–6] weeks): at least two reviewers assess originality, soundness of design and statistics, interpretation, presentation and relevance, using the journal’s reviewer form.

Decision: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject. Authors receive the reviewers’ anonymised comments.

Revision: authors return the revised manuscript, a tracked-changes copy, and a point-by-point response within [30] days for minor or [60] days for major revisions. Late revisions are treated as new submissions. Revised papers may go back to the reviewers.

Acceptance: the Editor-in-Chief confirms the paper is publishable. The accepted date is printed on the article.

Received, revised, accepted and published dates appear on every article. Submissions by editors or board members follow the same process and are handled independently by another editor. Reviewers and editors must keep manuscripts confidential and must not upload them to generative AI tools.

Appeals. Authors may appeal a decision once, in writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days, giving specific reasons. The appeal is assessed by an editor not involved in the original decision, who may seek another reviewer. The appeal decision is final.

2. Manuscript preparation before submission

Write in clear English (UK or US spelling, used consistently). Manuscripts in poor English may be returned without review; authors are encouraged to have the text checked by a fluent colleague or language editor before submission. A cover letter, main article file and check list should be prepared as per the instructions before starting submission.

Format. A4 page, 2.5 cm margins on all sides, Times New Roman, continuous line numbers, page numbers at the bottom right. Save as .docx. Use no more than three levels of headings.

Title

»Concise, informative title; scientific names in italics; no abbreviations

»Running title (Max. 20 words)

Abstract. One paragraph within the limit for the article type (Section 3). State the problem, objectives, methods, main quantitative results and conclusion (Check latest issue). No references or undefined abbreviations. The abstract of review/mini-review may not be subdivided into the order mentioned above. Please provide an abstract of no more than 300 words for Reviews and Full-length articles and 200 words for Short Communications.

Keywords. Three to five keywords, in lower case, preferably not repeating words from the title. The keywords are used for indexing, abstracting, and retrieval purposes.

Main text (original articles)

1. Introduction: the problem, what is known, the gap and the objectives

2. Materials and methods: enough detail to repeat the work, including location and dates of experiments, cultivar or genotype source, experimental design, number of replications and statistical methods (software name and version)

3. Results and discussion (combined), or Results and Discussion as separate sections

Tables and Figure: “embedded in the text or placed at the end” rather than requiring separate figure files during initial submission, unless your online submission system specifically requires separate uploads

5. Conclusion

6. Acknowledgements

7. Declarations (Section 9)

8. References

Statistics. Name the test used, report the experimental unit, number of replications, and a measure of variability (SE, SD or LSD) with the significance level. Report P values where relevant. Mean separation letters must be explained in table footnotes.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at their first mention in the text and used consistently thereafter. Avoid unnecessary abbreviations.

Units of measurement

Use the following standard units and symbols:

Quantity	Preferred units/symbols
Length	km, m, mm, µm, nm
Area	km², m², cm², mm²; a and ha are acceptable
Capacity	kl, l (liter in the text), ml, µl
Volume	km³, m³, cm³, mm³; do not use cc
Mass	kg, g, mg, µg, ng, pg
Time	s, min, h, day(s), week(s), month(s), year(s)
Concentration	M, mM, N, %, g/l, mg/l, µg/l, ppm, ppb
Temperature	°C
Gravity	×g
Molecular weight	mol wt
Radioisotopes	³²P
Radiation dose	Bq
Oxidation-reduction potential	rH
Hydrogen ion concentration	pH

Use l for litre in running text and units; do not use the Greek letter lambda or italic l.

For concentrations expressed as a percentage, place the % symbol after the numerical value (e.g., 2%). Percentage values may be used in tables and figures as appropriate.

Terminology and scientific names

» Genus and species names should always be italicized, e.g., Magnaporthe oryzae, Fusarium oxysporum.

» The genus name should begin with a capital letter, while the species epithet should begin with a lowercase letter.

» Common names of plants should not be capitalized unless they occur at the beginning of a sentence.

» Scientific names should be written in full at first mention and may subsequently be abbreviated according to standard scientific practice (e.g., Fusarium oxysporum → F. oxysporum).

Mathematical notation and symbols

Use standard mathematical notation for formulas, equations, and symbols.

» Italic type should be used for single letters denoting mathematical constants, variables, and unknown quantities.

» Roman/upright type should be used for numerals, operators, punctuation, and commonly defined mathematical functions or abbreviations, such as cos, det, exp, lim, log, max, min, sin, and tan. The differential operator d should also be set in roman/upright type.

» Mathematical expressions should be presented consistently throughout the manuscript.

3. Article types

Type of article accepted:
1. Original article
2. Review article
3. Mini-review
4. Short communication
All article types are peer reviewed. Page counts are typed manuscript pages (A4, 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced) and exclude the title page, references, tables and figures.

Type	Purpose	Max. length	Abstract	Structure
Original article	Original research with complete methods and results	12 pages	≤ 250 words, unstructured	IMRaD sections (Section 2)
Review article	Critical, comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge on a topic within scope	12 pages	≤ 250 words	Headings chosen by the authors
Mini-review	Focused, concise synthesis of a narrow topic or recent advance; not a condensed review article	6 pages	≤ 150 words	Headings chosen by the authors
Short communication	Concise original findings, new records, disease notes or methods	6 pages; ≤ 2 tables or figures	≤ 100 words	No section headings except References

Disease notes must describe symptoms, host, time and place of occurrence, pathogen identification or proof of pathogenicity, and the significance of the disease.

4. Open access, copyright and licensing

Open access statement. Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture is a fully open access journal. All articles are freely available online immediately on publication, with no embargo and no registration required. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text, crawl it for indexing, pass it as data to software, or use it for any other lawful purpose, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright. Authors retain copyright of their articles without restriction. On acceptance, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive licence to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.

Licence. All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). Anyone may share and adapt the work for any purpose, including commercially, provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the licence is provided and any changes are indicated.

Every published article displays this statement on its first page and landing page:

© [Year] The Author(s). Published by Gazipur Agricultural University. This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Third-party material. Figures, tables or text reproduced from other publications must carry permission from the copyright holder unless they are already under a compatible open licence. Submit evidence of permission with the manuscript and attribute the source in the caption. Such material is not covered by the article’s CC BY licence unless stated.

Self-archiving (repository policy). Authors may deposit any version of their work (preprint, accepted manuscript or published version of record) in an institutional or subject repository, or on a personal website, at any time and without embargo. Please link to the published article’s DOI.

Preprints. Posting a preprint before submission does not prevent consideration. Declare the preprint and its DOI at submission.

5. Publication fees

The journal charges no submission fee, article processing charge (APC), page charge or withdrawal fee in the Annals of Bangladesh Agriculture till now. Color art is free of charge for online publications. For the print version, the charge for color art is TK. 1000.00   plus 5% VAT for each publication. Authors who cannot pay the optional print colour charge may request a waiver from the editorial office; otherwise figures are printed in greyscale and appear in colour online. Authors must ensure figures remain readable in greyscale.

6. Submission, with the cover letter, declaration form, and main manuscript

Submit manuscripts only through the online system at https://www.ejmanager.com/my/aba/. The corresponding author registers once and then uploads all files. Submissions by email are not accepted. The date the complete submission reaches the system is recorded as the received date.

Main article file must not contain names of authors or affiliations.
This file will be sent to reviewers for double-blind peer review.

Use the [ABA manuscript Word template] (.docx). Upload these files:

1. Declaration form (Word): title, all authors, affiliations, corresponding author, and the declarations in Section 9.

2. Anonymised manuscript (Word): abstract to figure legends, with no author names, affiliations, acknowledgements or self-identifying references (write “Author, 2024” in place of self-citations if needed).

3. Figures: one file per figure (TIFF, PNG or JPEG ≥ 300 dpi; line art ≥ 600 dpi).

4. Supplementary material (optional).

5. Cover letter stating the novelty of the work and confirming it is not under consideration elsewhere. [Authors may use this template for Cover letter _ABA]

Checklist before you submit

☐  The work is original, unpublished and not under review elsewhere

☐  All authors approved the final version and the author order

☐  Data were collected within the last five years

☐  Length is within the limit for the article type

☐  Title, abstract and keywords are in English

☐  Every author has an ORCID iD (mandatory for the corresponding author)

☐  Every reference (if has) with a DOI lists it as https://doi.org/…

☐  Every in-text citation appears in the reference list, and vice versa

☐  Funding, conflict of interest, author contributions, data availability, ethics and AI-use statements are on the title page BUT NOT in the main article

☐  Permission is attached for any reproduced third-party material

☐  Line numbers and page numbers are switched on

Notes

Submissions by e-mail are not processed; use the online portal only.

A well-prepared manuscript that follows this guide receives a decision faster, since it does not need to go back and forth over formatting before review.

For queries about a submission already in the system, or any other question, write to the Executive Editor at editoraba@gau.edu.bd.

7. References

The journal uses the name–year system. Every reference must include its DOI when one exists, written as a full link (https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx). This lets Crossref link your references to the cited works, which makes your article and its sources easier to find and is a condition of the journal’s Crossref membership. Look up missing DOIs free at Crossref Simple Text Query or search.crossref.org.

List only works that are published or accepted for publication. Cite unpublished data and personal communications in the text only. Do not cite generative AI tools as sources. Reference managers (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley) are recommended. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of every reference; the editorial office checks DOIs and returns manuscripts with unverifiable references.

All references must be in Roman script. For works published in another script (such as Bangla), give an English translation of the title in square brackets and add “(in Bangla)” at the end.

Citation in Text. References should be cited in the text using the author–year system. Cite the author’s surname and year of publication in parentheses. Examples:

When the author’s name forms part of the sentence, the year should be given in parentheses:

» Thompson (1990) reported that negotiation research spans many disciplines.

» Becker and Seligman (1996) subsequently contradicted this result.

For works with three or more authors, use the first author’s surname followed by et al.:

» (Liakat et al., 1995)

» Liakat et al. (1995) reported similar findings.

When citing multiple references together, arrange them in chronological order from oldest to newest. Where references have the same publication year, arrange them alphabetically by first author:

» (Shils, 1991; Liakat et al., 1995; Hossain and Smith, 1998)

For multiple works by the same author published in the same year, distinguish them using lowercase letters:

» (Rahman, 2020a, 2020b)

Ensure that every reference cited in the text is included in the reference list, and that every reference listed is cited in the text.

Reference list. Arrange alphabetically by the first author’s surname. The first author is written surname first; later authors initials first, separated by commas, with “and” before the last (no comma before “and”). List all authors. Abbreviate journal titles according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations; if unsure, write the full title.

Journal article

Bates, L. S., R. P. Waldren and I. D. Teare. 1973. Rapid determination of free proline for water-stress studies. Plant Soil 39: 205–207. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00018060

Lutts, S., J. M. Kinet and J. Bouharmont. 1996. Effects of salt stress on growth, mineral nutrition and proline accumulation in relation to osmotic adjustment in rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars differing in salinity resistance. Plant Growth Regul. 19: 207–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00024062

Journal article without a DOI

Ayub, A., T. K. Dey, M. Jahan and M. Z. Rahman. 1996. Assessment of yield loss due to powdery mildew of blackgram. Bangladesh J. Plant Pathol. 12: 9–12.

Book

Hill, D. S. 1983. Agricultural Insect Pests of the Tropics and Their Control. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 746 p.

Book chapter

Troughton, J. H. 1975. Photosynthetic mechanisms in higher plants. In: J. P. Cooper (ed.) Photosynthesis and Productivity in Different Environments. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. pp. 57–91.

Report or guide

FRG. 2018. Fertilizer Recommendation Guide 2018. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, Farmgate, Dhaka. 76 p.

Dataset

Author, A. B. Year. Title of dataset (Version). Repository name. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Online document

Organisation or Author. Year. Title of page or document. Website name. URL (accessed 15 January 2026).

8. Tables, figures and supplementary material

Tables. Number tables with Arabic numerals in the order cited. Give each a title that explains its content without reference to the text. Use the Word table tool (no images, no vertical lines). State units in column headings. Put explanations, abbreviations and statistical notes in footnotes beneath the table, marked with superscript lower-case letters; use asterisks only for significance levels (* P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01, *** P < 0.001). Give the source of any previously published data at the end of the title.

Figures. Number figures with Arabic numerals in the order cited; label figure parts (a), (b), (c). Submit each figure as a separate high-resolution file (≥ 300 dpi for photographs, ≥ 600 dpi for line art) sized for one column (8 cm) or full page width (17 cm). Use a 8–10 pt after reduction. Axis labels must name the variable and unit, for example “Salinity level (dS m⁻¹)”. Show error bars and define them in the legend. Group figure legends after the tables. Figures must be readable in greyscale and should avoid red–green contrasts for colour-blind readers.

Image integrity. Adjustments to brightness, contrast or colour must be applied to the whole image and must not obscure or misrepresent any feature. Splicing of gel lanes or micrographs must be marked clearly. Original images must be available on request.

Supplementary material. Additional tables, figures, datasets or protocols may be submitted as supplementary files. They are peer reviewed, published online alongside the article without editing, and must be cited in the text (Table S1, Fig. S1).

9. Required declarations, including competing-interest disclosure

Every manuscript must carry the title, all authors, affiliations, corresponding author, and the declarations statements on the deceleration form. They are printed before the References in the published article. Write “Not applicable” rather than leaving a heading out.

Funding. Name each funder in full, with the grant number, for example: “This research was funded by the Research Management Wing (RMW), Gazipur Agricultural University (grant no. XXXX).” These details are deposited with Crossref and matched to the funder’s identifier, so spell funder names exactly. If there was no funding, write “This research received no external funding.”

Conflict of interest. Disclose any financial or non-financial interest that could be seen to influence the work: research grants, employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock, patents, advisory roles, or personal relationships. If none: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” Authors can use the ICMJE definition of a competing interest as a guide to what to disclose. An editor or editorial board member who is an author must declare this; the paper is then handled by another editor with no involvement from the author.

Author contributions (CRediT). Describe each author’s role using the CRediT taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/): Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Example: “M. A. B. Mia: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review and editing. M. Israr: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft.” Everyone listed as an author must meet authorship criteria; others who helped go in the Acknowledgements.

Data availability. State where the data supporting the findings can be found, for example: “The data are available in [repository] at https://doi.org/…”, or “The data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.” Deposit in a public repository (such as Zenodo, Dryad or Figshare) is encouraged.

Ethics approval and consent. Studies involving human participants (including surveys and interviews with farmers) must state the name of the approving ethics committee and the approval number, and confirm that informed consent was obtained. Studies on animals must state compliance with institutional and national guidelines and give the approval reference. If neither applies: “This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.”

Use of generative AI. Disclose any use of generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT or Claude) beyond basic grammar and spelling correction, naming the tool and how it was used, for example: “The authors used [tool] to improve the readability of the Introduction and reviewed and edited the output.” Authors are fully responsible for the content. AI tools cannot be listed as authors or cited as sources, and must not be used to create or alter data or images.

10. Publication ethics, plagiarism screening and malpractice

The journal follows the Core Practices and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. This section is the journal’s publication ethics and malpractice statement.

Authors must ensure that:

» The manuscript is original, has not been published before (in whole or part), and is not under consideration elsewhere. Thesis chapters and preprints are not prior publication but must be declared.

» A single study is not split into several papers

» No data, images or results are fabricated, falsified or selectively manipulated.

» Others’ words, data and ideas are properly cited; verbatim text is quoted and referenced. Reuse of the authors’ own published text must be declared and cited.

» All authors made a substantial contribution, approved the final version and agreed to submission; the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was done have consented.

» The author list and order are final at submission. Any change before acceptance needs a letter signed by all authors explaining it. No changes are made after acceptance.

» Raw data, samples and records are retained and supplied on request.

Plagiarism screening. All submissions are screened with iThenticate/Turnitin, a professional plagiarism-detection service. The journal does not accept plagiarised material for publication. An editor reviews every similarity report before any decision; a similarity score alone never decides an outcome, but manuscripts with substantial unattributed overlap are rejected.

Editors’ and reviewers’ responsibilities. Editors judge manuscripts only on scientific merit, keep submissions confidential, and declare conflicts of interest. Reviewers decline invitations where they have a conflict, keep the manuscript confidential, do not use unpublished material for their own work, and give objective, constructive reports.

Handling misconduct. Suspected misconduct, raised before or after publication, is investigated following COPE guidance. The authors are contacted and given the chance to respond. Depending on the outcome, the journal may reject the manuscript, publish a correction or expression of concern, retract the article, and inform the authors’ institution.

Complaints. Send complaints about the journal’s processes to the Editor at editoraba@gau.edu.bd. They are acknowledged within [7] days and handled according to COPE guidance.

11. After acceptance, including provisional acceptance, corrections and retraction policy

Upon provisional acceptance. A paper is “provisionally accepted” when the Editor-in-Chief judges it publishable subject to final formatting and reference checks. The corresponding author is notified by email and asked to supply any outstanding items (a clean final file, high-resolution figures, signed copyright and declaration forms) before the paper is scheduled to an issue. Only once these are received does the paper move to proofs.

Proofs. The corresponding author receives page proofs by email and must return corrections within [3] working days. Only typesetting errors may be corrected at this stage; changes to results, title or authorship need the Editor-in-Chief’s approval.

Publication and DOI. Each article receives a Crossref DOI, registered on the day of publication, in the form https://doi.org/10.3329/aba.v[volume]i[issue].[article no.]. The DOI resolves to the article’s landing page on the journal website, which shows the title, authors, abstract, keywords, dates, licence, full-text PDF and a suggested citation. The journal deposits metadata with Crossref (including references, ORCID iDs, funding, licence and abstract) and with DOAJ.

How to cite. Example: Israr, M., M. A. A. Mamun, M. S. Pervin and M. A. B. Mia. 2026. Salinity-induced variation in physiological and biochemical profiles of aromatic rice genotypes. Ann. Bangladesh Agric. 30(1): 33–55. https://doi.org/10.3329/aba.v30i1.85607

Corrections and retractions. Once published, an article is not changed. Errors that affect interpretation are corrected through a linked correction (erratum) notice with its own DOI. Articles found to be seriously flawed or the result of misconduct are retracted following the COPE Retraction Guidelines: the article stays online, watermarked “Retracted”, with a linked notice explaining why. Crossref metadata is updated accordingly.

Archiving and preservation. All published content is preserved in Internet Archive and mirrored on [Bangladesh Journals Online (BanglaJOL)]. If the journal ceases publication, its content will remain openly accessible through these archives.